


Rationalizations

by Butterfly



Series: Queering the Text [7]
Category: due South
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-04-27
Updated: 2004-04-27
Packaged: 2017-10-26 18:50:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/286701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterfly/pseuds/Butterfly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ray knew it was over with Stella when she stopped correcting him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rationalizations

**Author's Note:**

> Post- _Mountie and Soul_.

I can't believe that Fraser did that. That he just let a guy beat the shit out of me because he thought I needed... closure or something like that.

No, wait, I can, because that's who Fraser is -- if the Marcus of Queensbury rules didn't already exist, Fraser would have invented them. Honor, dignity, justice. Not kicking guys in the head or balls. Still, I think that I've talked sense into him -- he might want to do the one on one thing sometimes, which is something I'll try to remember, but now he gets that I don't need that. I've never seen the point in fighting alone. I became part of a two when I was twelve and I still haven't adjusted to being a one again.

I don't really want to. I miss the instant communication that Stell and I had when we started. We could just look at each other and _know_. One-two punch, each of us just half of a single person.

But Stella's her own person now. Maybe she always was, and it was just me who was a half.

Fuck, this is why I should avoid drinking after getting beat up. I get _maudlin_. I hate being maudlin. First off, because it's a Stella word, it's a total Stella word. I mean, for all I know, it could be a completely fake word because I have never heard anyone else use it. But whenever I had a rough day and had a few beers to unwind, wanted to dance or just tell her how much I loved her, she'd tell me that I was getting maudlin on her.

"Oh, Ray, stop being silly. You're just being maudlin. Maybe you should just cut back on the beer."

I never had a problem with it though, not even after she left. I drank to relax, I occasionally got _maudlin_ when I drank, but I never tried to forget with booze. But Stella was a worrier. She knew things, statistics about cops and their shitty morale, so she worried. Maybe it was the smart thing to do.

Until I met Fraser, I'd thought that Stella had to be the smartest person that I'd ever met. Hell, she always knew what word I wanted to use and she always used to correct my grammar and shit.

I guess that I knew it was over when she stopped bothering. Before, it'd always annoyed the hell out of me when she did it, like she was trying to point out to the world that she'd married someone who couldn't rate with her big brain. But after, fuck, it was only after that I realized that it meant she cared. That she understood, because she always knew what I wanted to say. She got me without the words.

Then, she stopped trying.

That was... fuck, probably around five years ago. Five years when I couldn't understand why we kept drifting apart. When I kept trying to reconnect -- with dancing, with fucking, with candles and starlight and romance that always ended when the sun came up. I'd try to talk to her, trip up over my words, and she wouldn't help me keep them straight. Didn't want to, because I'd never tried hard enough to get them straight.

It's funny how much Stella and Fraser have in common on the surface. But Stella would find the word because she knew me, and Fraser... Fraser knows words. He cares about the way things fit together. I can't let myself believe that it's more than that. Nice as it would be to have a real partner, I know that it's as unlikely as hell. I mean, Stella and me had the physical side going and we still couldn't make it last. This Fraser thing's only a temp job, anyhow. Hopefully, Vecchio'll get back before Fraser figures out that I'm not worth the trouble. It'd be nice to leave with only good memories, while he still thinks that I'm a good guy, that he'd be honored to think of me as a friend and a partner.

It's funny, because most of the world, I could just give a fuck what they think. It's just people, certain people. My parents, yeah. Stella -- her parents, too, eventually. Fraser and the Lieu and Huey's a good guy. I mean, I have an image, a _persona_ , but that's to get what I need. People think I'm bad-ass, it works for the rep, works for the job.

And tough is easy. I've played that even before I met the girl who made me want to impress her. I guess, at some point, tough stopped being her thing. Now, she wants respectable. I would've tried to be that guy for her, too, but she never wanted me to. I can remember her telling me that she didn't ever want me to change for her -- I never did tell her that that was just stupid, because changing for her was what I _did_ , because it seemed so important to her. I had to be Ray, version Steve McQueen.

Stella'd never met Stanley, after all. I started calling myself 'Ray' when I turned ten and started cutting class. I was smoking at thirteen, which is something I'm regretting now that I'm in my thirties and I get winded a hell of a lot faster than I used to. Plus, they do not lie about that addiction thing. Fuck, I quit the day before I married Stella and I _still_ get cravings.

Glad that I quit, though. I get the feeling that Fraser would not approve of smoking. Probably has a long list of reasons that would be a hell of a lot like Stella's list of reasons. God, Stella's lists had annoyed the hell out of me when we'd been together.

That's something else that I never got around to telling her.

Guess that it's too late now.

  
_the end_   



End file.
